


Another Time And Place

by bjfic_archivist



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Angst, Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-23
Updated: 2005-02-23
Packaged: 2018-12-26 20:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12066822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjfic_archivist/pseuds/bjfic_archivist
Summary: 35 into the future. Brian and Michael are in Florida just like Michael predicted in season 1 - or aren't they?





	Another Time And Place

**Author's Note:**

> Note from IrishCaelan, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Brian_Justin_Fanfiction_Archive). To preserve the archive, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in September 2017. I posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Brian/Justin Fanfiction Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/bjfic/profile).

First and foremost this goes to Lois – sorry I didn’t send it to you first – because she keeps sending me all those cards even though she never gets an answer. I’m still here, honey! And I love you.  
To Joanne because I owe her tons of feedback for all the great stuff she’s writing.  
And to Connor – bless his heart – because he said this story sucked. Well, he didn’t really say it sucked but he mentioned that he was glad QaF was ending after the fifth season because otherwise he might have to run off screaming!

And now – I still hope you’ll enjoy the story!

* * *

The sun was hot on his shoulders and he moved closer to the house, sighing when he felt the shadow touching his skin. It wasn’t as if he had to avoid the sun. It actually liked him, he was tanning easily, not like other people he knew. 

Brian shook his head, wondering where that thought had come from and how hot the day would get. They were all the same, somehow, down here. Fucking Key West. Damn Florida. God, life was a bitch. 

“Brian, are you out there?” 

He didn’t want to answer. This was his time of the day. It was still early and there were barely any people on the beach. He’d been watching the sun-tanned twenty-something guy in the red Speedo for the last fifteen minutes and liked the feeling that, all of a sudden, his pants felt too tight. Yeah, it was good to still be alive. 

“Brian?”

Leaning back against the wall, he closed his eyes. He didn’t want to give up his solitude so soon. One moment. Just another minute. Another second …

“Briiiiaaan!”

Fuck. 

Brian pushed himself off of the wall. He hated the way his muscles tensed, hated the tiny throb he started to feel just above his left brow. He felt the sand crunch underneath his feet and hated it. But he pushed those feelings away and, keeping his strides light and relaxed, and the smile on his face equally false, entered the house through the glass doors. 

“Brian.” There was such relief in the face that greeted him, for a moment he almost felt bad for his not so loving thoughts. 

“Mikey.” Brian couldn’t keep the sigh from his voice as he crossed the living-room. “How the fuck did you manage to fall out of your chair again?”

“I don’t know.” Michael barely managed to keep the whine out of his voice. His breath hitched, “I … I tried to … reach the salt…” He trailed off, a bony finger pointing at the object standing right in the middle of the dining table. 

Brian quirked a brow, and managed not to wince at the pain that shot right through the spot. “Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”

A tiny shrug was the answer. It looked kind of pathetic, the thin shoulders rising and falling almost imperceptibly. “You really are pathetic, you know,” Brian said, trying to make it sound like a joke, a reminiscence of days long gone, but the look in Michael’s eyes told him his friend wasn’t buying the charade. 

Sighing again, Brian ignored his aching joints – yes, he was pushing seventy, but he didn’t have to think about it all the time, right? – and the crack in his back while he was bending down, and managed to heave his long-time friend back into the electric wheelchair. 

It lifted his spirits a little that he wasn’t even breathing hard as he straightened up, but the tiny spark of good mood died quickly at the sight of Michael trembling in his chair. Fuck. He really was a bastard. Mikey had to be mortified by the situation. 

“Ah,” Brian cleared his throat. “What did you have in mind?”

“I thought about making us some scrambled eggs.” Michael’s voice trembled a little, but his eyes were dry now, clear once again. “You hungry?”

He would never get it. Brian didn’t even bother sighing. “Thanks, but you know I’m not eating any eggs.”

A frown appeared on Michael’s face. “Why the hell not?”

Brian didn’t shake his head. It wasn’t going to help anyway. “Because they make me fat.”

“Fuck, Brian. You’re seventy years old-“

“Sixty-nine.” Yes, it was petty, but he couldn’t help himself. 

Michael rolled his eyes, “Fine. Sixty-nine. But don’t you think it’s kind of moot to be so obsessed about weight. It’s not as if guys are waiting in line to fuck you.”

Thanks so much, asshole. But Brian bit back the words, knowing that they wouldn’t do any good. Mikey would never get it. “I could do with some toast, though.” Changing the subject was better than committing homicide. 

“Fine.”

He took another look at the man in the wheelchair to ground himself. Yes, he had a lot to be grateful for. He was still tall, and still didn’t really have body fat. His hair was full and thanks to modern technology still the same color as always. Thanks to Dr. Markovicz and his nicely filled bank account Brian didn’t have a lot of wrinkles either. On a good day he could go for fifty. On a very good day even forty-nine. 

Michael on the other hand hadn’t been that fortunate. Apart from the wheelchair, curtsey of a drunken driver ten years back, he had gained some pounds over the years, and most of his almost white hair had fallen out a long time ago. And Brian didn’t even want to know when his friend might have had his last hard-on. 

When he focussed his eyes on the other man again, he saw Michael frown. “What,” he asked, not caring that he sounded kind of snappish. Mikey could test the patience of a saint, and he was as far from a saint as you could get, thank you very much. 

“What day is today?” 

Fuck. There it was again. That distant look. He hated to see it on the familiar face, hated it when Mikey lost himself where nobody could follow him. 

He walked over to his friend and touched his almost bald head. “It’s Friday, Mikey.”

“Friday.” The day didn’t have any meaning for Debbie’s son. Not at the moment. “Is today the day Ben is coming?” The frown deepened. “Or was it Hunter?”

“Mikey,” Brian tried to keep his voice soft. “They both died a long time ago. Don’t you remember. They had AIDS and died.”

“AIDS?” Michael repeated, trying to find a meaning in those letters, and finding none. Then he started to tremble, “Th-they are dead?”

Again, Brian sighed. “Yes. You know that, Mikey. You just don’t remember it right now.”

“I know?” Michael’s voice hitched. “H-how?”

“AIDS,” Brian repeated, inwardly counting to ten – and back. “Ben and Hunter died of AIDS.”

Michael stared at him, then suddenly blinked. “Of course they did,” he said, his gaze clear again, another kind of frown now marring his already marred forehead. “Geez, Brian it’s been more than fifteen years. You don’t have to treat me like a hothouse flower, I *can* talk about it now.”

Removing his hand from his friend’s head, Brian managed a smile. “I know.” He gave Michael a last long look. “You were about to make us breakfast.”

Again a frown. Then a nod. “Right. No eggs for you. Which is kind of stupid if you ask me.” Brian felt something like fondness – it was just fleeting but it was there, and he promised himself to be nicer. After all, compared to his own, Michael’s life really sucked.

“None of us are getting any younger, Brian. Fat or no fat – who really cares about that shit?”

But that didn’t mean you had to be kind all the time to the less fortunate.

“Listen, Mikey,” he snarled. But before he could continue he felt a familiar vibration in his pocket. 

Brian pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Saved by the cell-phone. At another time and place he might have laughed at the absurdity. 

Turning away from the wheelchair he walked to the open door and out on the beach. He looked at the display and smiled. “Hey.” His voice was low now, intimate. 

“Any casualties yet?”

Brian felt himself laugh, the sound matching his voice. “You just saved me from a life in jail.”

“Ah.” A pregnant pause. “May I remind you that it was your idea-“

“Yeah, yeah,” Brian interrupted. “Ted really owes me for this.”

A chuckle. “I’m sitting at the pool and Ricardo is serving coffee.”

“Fuck you.”

“Thanks to Mr-I’m-so-selfless not so much right now.” 

“Not so selfless, I can assure you. God, I want Ricardo’s coffee.”

Another chuckle. “You’re doing great, Brian. And remember, Ted will be back in forty-eight hours.”

“Yeah, yeah.” he sighed. 

“I need to go now. Daphne is in Los Angeles. We’re meeting for breakfast. I probably have to look at all those disgusting pictures of babies. Seems her two daughters have spawned again.”

Brian laughed quietly, his dark mood gone. “Give her a kiss.”

“I will. See you Sunday.”

“Yeah.” He paused for a moment. “Sunshine.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks and all that.”

A chuckle. Brian could almost see Justin grinning. “All that back to you, Brian.”

He ended that call and felt he was grinning too.

“Brian!”

Forty-eight hours. He could do that. Two days in Florida with Mikey he would survive. 

“Brian!”

Even if barely.


End file.
